I Believe
by captainfloor
Summary: After just having agreed not to kill each other, Rumpelstiltskin decides to pay Hook a visit in the captain's cabin. His love for his son leads the Crocodile to offer Hook reluctant (and unwanted) advice about love and Emma Swan.


"Ever heard of knocking?"

"Actually, when you're the Dark One" Mr. Gold raised his hand slightly so that the door shut and locked itself behind him. He smirked, "You never knock."

"Ah, the Dark One." Hook turned to face him, his eyes widening in mock amazement. "Nearly didn't recognize you without your crocodile skin."

He tilted the hook toward his face as if to get a better look at it, and without once glancing at Gold, said, "Quite risky to lock yourself in here, seeing as how I've sought revenge for your death for the past 300 years."

Gold replied curtly, "You can't kill me."

Hook raised an eyebrow and stood up slowly. "Is that supposed to insult me, Crocodile? I don't know if you've heard, but I never step down from a challenge."

"You see, it doesn't make any sense." Gold started to pace around the cabin room, slowly, infuriatingly, circling around Hook and tapping his cane on the wooden floor. "How could someone who asked me to kill him - on this very ship - suddenly care for his own life? Why abandon thirst for revenge? I admit, I thought this was all in your plan. To act like the hero and kill me when everyone least expected it."

"I don't know what you're talking about, Crocodile." Hook spat, his eyes narrowing and lips curling.

"You can't kill me, because you're in love."

For one second, a look of pure and child-like vulnerability - so out of place - flashed across Hook's ragged face. But by the time Gold turned to face him, a look of amusement had contorted his features. He grinned mischievously, his dimple seeking shelter behind the dark stubble on his jaw. "In love? With who - the princess? Seeing as how much her bloody prince loathes me, I don't - "

"Not her," Gold snapped impatiently. "Emma."

Hook laughed incredulously. The right corner of his lip lifted up in a twisted smile that seemed never to reach his eyes. "You think I'm in love with the Swan girl?"

"Frankly," Gold leaned in and whispered mockingly, "It's quite obvious."

"And what do _you_ know about love?" Hook sneered at him.

Without so much as a warning, Gold suddenly threw his cane aside so that it hit the wall and snapped into two. He flew at Hook, pinning him to the wall by the throat with his bare hands. Too angry to answer, too angry to use magic, he snarled, "You stole Milah from me. You stole _my_ love."

"Your _love_?" Hook cackled breathlessly, and made no move to escape, though they both knew that one swift movement of the shiny piece of metal in place of his hand could easily do the job. He furrowed his eyebrows in feigned confusion. "Funny way of showing it. In case you forgot, Crocodile, you _killed _her."

He spat the words. Biting, accusing, trembling. His blue eyes were glaring, but they were empty, a black abyss.

Gold leaned in threateningly so that his whisper was a hot breath brushing Hook's scarred cheek. "But only because you stole her from me."

"When you love someone, you don't kill them." Hook hissed, "You fight for them, you coward."

A stab in the heart would have been more painful for Gold than that last word. He looked away, but not fast enough. It was impossible to miss the guilt and misery that clouded his eyes. He loosened his grip so suddenly that Hook staggered forward, coughing. He massaged his throat with his good hand, muttering, "Bloody hell."

"Coward," Gold muttered. A soft chuckle evolved into crazed cackling. He finally raised his head and sneered, "Well takes one to know one, doesn't it, boy?"

Hook's eyebrows shot straight up, and his face broke into a dangerous half-smile. He crossed his arms across his chest and tilted his head slightly to the right. "And why is that?"

"Why, isn't it obvious?" He tittered, seeming at that moment, more like Rumpelstiltskin than he did Mr. Gold. "You're not fighting for what you want, either. You're hiding from your emotions…_coward_."

Any sign of a smile that had danced on Hook's lips disappeared. The expression on Hook's face was unreadable, emotionless. Dead. "Why are you here?"

"To tell you it's okay to move on." Gold leaned down to pick up the two halves of his cane and with a simple wave of his hand, pieced it back together. His nose crinkled and his eyebrows furrowed in contempt. "Sweet of me, I know."

Hook narrowed his eyes. "Tell me something, Crocodile. Why do you care whether or not I'm in love?"

"It's not you I care about."

Hook's blue eyes met Gold's brown ones, and both pools of ocean and earth held, not hatred, but reluctant understanding. Gold turned away. He crossed the cabin toward the door and opened it, letting in a cool gust of wind and the familiar smell of sea salt.

"Wait." Hook's voice was hesitant, unsure. Gold stopped, a dark silhouette against the door frame.

The pirate's jaw clenched tightly. "Why are you telling me all of this?"

"I've seen the way she looks at you, you know." Gold turned and grimaced uncomfortably. After a beat, he finally admitted, "My son would have wanted her to be happy."

Without another word, he walked out.

And for the first time in over 300 years, life flickered in Killian Jones's eyes, as if somewhere out there, children were clapping their hands and singing, "I believe. I believe."


End file.
